Letters: A Daughter's Connection To 'American Pie'

AUDIE CORNISH: Now a correction. Followed by your letters about we made you cry. Correction first. On Friday's program, in a story about Amazon's latest Kindle device, we said that Apple does not offer an iPad with a 4G wireless connection. In fact, some iPad models do include a 4G connection.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And now, on to those tears. They were shed over a connection of a different type.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AMERICAN PIE")

DON MCLEAN: I met who girl who sang the blues, and I asked her for some happy news.

BLOCK: In our final installment of the series Mom and Dad's Record Collection, listener Mel Fisher Ostrowski shared a story about this song, "American Pie." She said it helped her bridge the gap between a father she hardly knew and her baby boy.

MEL FISHER OSTROWSKI: And I still sing it to him all the time. I sang it to him on Saturday night.

BLOCK: And then, she sang it to us.

OSTROWSKI: (Singing) They caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died. And they were singing...

BLOCK: Oh, you're gonna make me cry.

OSTROWSKI: I'm sorry, Melissa. You've made me cry.

CORNISH: Well, Melissa and Mel were not the only ones getting misty. We got dozens of appreciative emails and online comments about this interview. Randall Jones(ph) of Smyrna, Tennessee writes, this was the most touching story that I have ever heard anywhere. I do not cry very often, but this story brought me to tears. I just wanted to say thank you.

BLOCK: There were a couple of you whose eyes remained dry, including Rebecca Whetstein(ph) who posted this at npr.org, this story was a long, trite trudge and waste of airtime weeping for an editor. She adds, this was gaggingly self-indulgent.

CORNISH: Still, most of you loved it. Daphne Sorous of Laurel, Maryland wrote us after hearing this story in her car. She says this - by the time you played the end of the song, I was singing out loud and crying like an idiot. At that moment, I stopped at a red light and looked through the rear view mirror and saw another woman in her car singing out loud and crying like an idiot, as well, which of course, made me laugh.

BLOCK: Whatever your response, we do like hearing from you. Write to us as npr.org, just click on contact us at the bottom of the page.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AMERICAN PIE")

MCLEAN: And they were singing, bye-bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.